


Welcome to the Team

by SSO-Jack-Wolfwatcher (UglyJackal)



Category: Star Stable
Genre: Jack runs a bar, Wild West AU, it's Eden's first day and this happens?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/SSO-Jack-Wolfwatcher
Summary: Eden goes for a job working with Jack at the bar.





	Welcome to the Team

Jack had always rebutted any suggestion of an employee working with him. The bar was never so busy that he couldn't handle it, and if anyone did get rowdy, he had a few glares and harsh words to fire at them before anything got rough. Plus, there was a shotgun under the bar. But Jack had always said that he didn't need an employee to clutter up his bar - Halli, his fox, did that enough.

But when the saloon doors swung open early one morning, and Jack looked up from the Eternally Filthy Glass to see the figure of a strong woman framed in the sunlight, he felt that his peaceful little bar was about to change. The girl walked out of the sunlight, and before him stood a girl with long brown hair and a spark in her eyes, as well as a slightly unimpressive height, (not that Jack could really say anything about it, but that wasn't the point).

'We're not open,' Jack said, shortly, and went back to polishing the glass.

'I don't want a drink,' the girl said.

'Well, the food isn't gonna be ready either,' the barkeep grunted, 'I start cooking around noon, when people actually wanna eat.'

'I don't want food either.'

'You're gonna have a hard time getting anything else out of this place, then,' the man snapped, grouchily, 'go on, little girl, there are better places for you to be than here.'

'I'm looking for employment, and don't call me "little girl",' she replied, heatedly.

Jack scoffed. 'Did you see a sign outside that said I was looking for employment?'

'No, should there have been?'

'No!' the bartender exclaimed, 'because I'm not. So get lost, girlie.'

'That's not a better nickname, old man,' the girl snapped.

'Ooh, feisty one, aren't you?' Jack growled, 'what do you want to work in a place like this for anyway?'

The woman looked down at her feet sadly. 'I need to get back to Old Jorvik.'

Jack scrunched his nose up in distaste and confusion. 'Why? I heard Old Jorvik was a bit of a shit-hole, plus all that dark shit happening,' he remarked.

She looked up at him, almost looking offended at the remark. ' I want to move back because I always heard stories from my grandparents about it; about how our family used to own a farm there before they left because of the growing darkness - which I don't believe in, by the way. And I want to go back and rebuild the farm... both for myself and my grandparents,' she said.

The barkeep pursed his lips and nodded. As much as he hated to admit it, he liked this girl. 'Alright, fine,' he sighed, 'what's your name, kid?'

'Eden Dawnvalley,' she replied with pride in her tone.

Jack, not being aware of the founders of New Jorvik, had no reaction to to Eden's surname. 'I'm Jack Wolfwatcher,' he responded.

And so began Eden's first day at the bar.

* * *

Eden's first day of work didn't spare her from the hard work that came with running a bar. Jack got her to drag new barrels of beer up from the cellar, and had her running back and forth to get new crates of whiskey bottles to put out on the shelves behind the bar. Jack observed all of this while cleaning the top of the bar, wiping the surface clear of crumbs and rings of alcohol that the cool bottles had left.

The customers were peaceful enough, patiently waiting for their drinks while the new girl ran down to the cellar to get their desired bottle. A few customers made jibes about Jack finally getting a pretty girl behind his bar, and asking about her age and relationship status.

'Shut the fuck up,' Jack snapped at a particularly drunk sleaze who was starting to push his luck, 'Eden is nineteen, you creep, and you all know that I bat for the other team.'

After the usually quiet man's outburst, comments died down about Eden.

'Awww, you finally caved in and got yourself an employee,' Zelda Dusknight, a regular gambler in the bar and one of Jack's best friends, cooed at the man.

The barkeep rolled his eyes. 'When are you gonna stop hanging around this bar like a bad smell?' he retorted.

'Absolutely never,' the dark-haired woman replied.

Just before noon, Jack turned to his new employee and said, 'We're gonna start doing the food now.'

Eden nodded.

'I'm not gonna get you to cook, but you can chuck ingredients up from the cellar,' he continued. He turned to glare at the customers sitting around tables. 'And if _any_ of you _dare_ utter "yeehaw" while I'm gone...' he growled. The customers knew how much that bothered Jack, so they all nodded quietly, starting to tell stories about how someone had once been shot for saying it.

Jack and Eden disappeared into the kitchen, and Jack rubbed his hands together. He listed off a bunch of ingredients that he would need for the various dishes that he could prepare, all of which Eden dutifully gathered. Jack shooed Halli out of the kitchen as the woman put the ingredients on the worktop.

'Make sure to keep checking out front in case anyone wants another drink,' the barkeep said, starting to cut up some of the food that Eden had brought him.

For the next half an hour, Eden would periodically watch Jack's cooking and check on the bar to serve customers, until finally, the food had been prepared and was ready to be cooked.

'Tell everyone that if they want to order some food, they better do it quick,' Jack said to the young girl, over his shoulder.

Eden nodded, even though her employer couldn't see it, and trotted back to the bar. She had just opened her mouth to announce the near arrival of food, when there was an almighty crash as two thugs rolled into a table.

With punching and kicking and biting, a fight between two men had broken out over something rather trivial, knowing these boneheads. Halli was stood on the bar, hackles up, teeth bared, as the men rolled around the saloon. Zelda was too engrossed in a  game of poker to pay much attention to the brawl going on behind her. She only noticed when the pair of brutes tumbled into her table, knocking it out from underneath her hand of cards, to which she stood up and shouted in frustration.

Eden didn't know what to do. She was out of her depth. She had never had to deal with a fight before, and she couldn't shout loud enough above the noise of the fight.

Just as she was about to go back and call for Jack, the man was already there. He sighed as he saw the fight, then lunged forward, grabbed a shotgun from under the bar, and held it at the two thugs with a wordless yell that rose above all the noise in the bar.

Everyone came to a stop.

They all paused in their positions; the two fighting men seeming to hover in mid-air for a moment before crashing to the ground on top of one another.

They all looked at the quiet barkeep, eyes ablaze with fury, hands eerily steady as he held the shotgun towards the commotion, finger ready to pull the trigger. They all felt curiously intimidated of the man with a gun that looked almost bigger than he was.

'You all know what happens when a fight breaks out in this bar,' Jack shouted at the guilty party in front of him, 'it's no secret that I have this fucking gun under here, so what the FUCK do you idiots think you're doing?!'

There was no response. It had never been so quiet in that bar since the day it had first opened.

Jack took a steadying breath and put the gun back underneath the bar where it had lay before. 'Get out,' he said to the men that had been fighting. They quickly scurried out of the saloon.

The barkeep turned back to Eden and quietly muttered to her, 'I actually have no idea how to use that gun, I just know how to shout really loud.'

Eden chuckled. 'Shall we start to put the table back to rights?' she suggested.

'I was just about to tell you to do that,' the barkeep said with a smile, 'you learn quick, I must say.'

Together, they started to sweep up broken glass, mop down the floor so that it was free of puddles, and prop the chairs and tables  back up. The other customers offered to help, but Jack pushed them away as quickly as he could; he didn't need the help of any slightly drunk men and women helping to wipe down floors.

Eden finished before Jack and returned to the bar for any customers to order drinks, while Jack was still aggressively mopping the floor, muttering about cowboys and their godforsaken yeehawing and brawling.

Once he had finally stopped complaining, he returned to the kitchen to carry on cooking the food.

There wasn't any more drama throughout the day until closing time, when Jack shooed out the drunkards with his broom. He locked the doors and turned back to Eden.

'You did really well today, Eden,' he said.

'Thanks,' she replied with a smile, 'have I passed the test, or are you gonna fire me?'

Jack snorted. 'So long as you don't touch that shotgun, welcome to the team, partner.'

'Please don't try to say "partner" like that with your accent,' Eden said with a small chuckle.


End file.
